© Tom Blewitt & Zack Griffiths – Predator Awareness

A convicted sex offender has been sent back to prison after repeatedly approaching young children while drunk — despite being subject to a court order banning him from communicating with them.

Raymond Beckett, 65, left a grandmother horrified after turning up at her home in Southport and later approaching her grandchildren as they played outside.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that Beckett had moved into his then home on June 1, but just 19 days later he knocked on the woman’s door while she was caring for three grandchildren, all aged under 11.

The eldest child, an eight-year-old boy, answered the door and was confronted by Beckett, who claimed he had been assaulted with a baseball bat and left bleeding.

Prosecutor Jonathan Keane told the court the grandmother was alarmed by Beckett’s appearance and believed he was clearly intoxicated.

Later that same day, Beckett approached the children again while they were playing outside.

This time he was shirtless, drunk and behaving aggressively, the court heard.

He allegedly beckoned the grandmother’s young granddaughter towards him and asked her to come over, but the girl refused.

The following day, Beckett once again knocked at the family’s door and began talking to the eldest child before his grandmother intervened and ordered the youngster to shut the door.

The incidents were particularly concerning because Beckett was already subject to a five-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order imposed in April last year.

Under the order, Beckett was prohibited from communicating with children unless their parent or guardian knew about his previous sexual offence conviction.

The restriction had been imposed after Beckett was jailed for nine months for two counts of sexual assault involving a teenage girl on a train.

During that attack, Beckett sexually assaulted the girl before asking her: “Don’t you like being touched?”

His previous sentencing hearing was itself delayed after Beckett was deemed too intoxicated to participate in proceedings.

He had reportedly been found lying on steps near Derby Square after apparently falling while making his way to the Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts.

Beckett shook his head in the dock as his latest breaches brought him back before Liverpool Crown Court, where he was sent back to prison.